Early this year my wife was experiencing similar problems when taking
documents back and forth to school.
She has Macs at school, and we are using Office 97 at home.
For us the problem was fixed by installing Service Pack 1.0 over the top of
Office 97, plus installing two converters that I downloaded from
microsoft.com (one to convert from earlier versions into Word 97, the other
to convert from Word 97 to Word 6.0/95)
I realise that for most people this is highly unsatisfactory. The way the
Microsoft publicises fixes and makes them available via their web site is
far to obscure for most people. I guess the marketing types want to keep
bug fixes low profile??
Still the Service Pack did the trick for us. ;-]
BTW I seem to remember that there is an even newer Service Pack available
from their web site now.
Bruce Kay
Information Management Consulting
Telephone: +61 412 213 689 (w)
+61 2 6254 8978 (h)
Facsimile +61 2 6254 7896
Email: brucekay@ozemail.com.au
bruce@kay.fam.aust.com
The views expressed in this email are the views of the author only
And do not represent the official view of any other organisation.
-----Original Message-----
From: Roger Clarke [SMTP:Roger.Clarke@anu.edu.au]
Sent: Thursday, September 10, 1998 6:07 PM
To: link@www.anu.edu.au
Subject: MS Word Format Difficulties
<meta>
This is *not* intended to start yet another blaze of MS-hate. So *please*
keep flames off-link. There is presumably a busy alt.hate.gates newsgroup.
</meta>
I use Mac Word 5.1a, which was a stable version, with almost all the
functionality that a normal writer of 20-page papers and 50-page
consultancy reports needs. I have a filter installed that reads Word 6
format with pretty high (though imperfect) reliability.
I use Mac Word 6.0.1 when forced to, which is almost always in order to
mark revisions, and send them to a colleague in visible form (i.e. I see
that as being functionality worth having, but not at the cost of always
using a buggy tool that has random user-interface differences from its
predecessor).
I've experienced serious difficulties when reading documents that were
created using Word97/98. This has been the case with all of:
- native Word97/98 format (which seem to be externally indistinguishable
from any other Word format, despite the vast differences between
the native formats of successive Word versions);
- saved-as Word 6 (which seems to be especially poor when tables are
used in the Word97/98 master); and
- saved-as RTF (which seems to be a rather different spec - although I'm
told that 'spec' rather over-states the degree of documentation ...).
The term 'serious difficulties' means that Word crashes, my Mac G3 crashes,
or it freezes. (Yes, I'll be fair: the crashing and freezing of the Mac
reflect an inadequacy in MacOS 8.1, as well as in Words 5, 6 and 97/98).
I've heard reports from reliable sources that the filters provided for Word
5 and Word 6, which purport to enable them to read native Word97/98
formats, frequently cause the same kinds of 'serious difficulties'.
Meanwhile, organisation after organisation blindly mandates abandonment of
prior versions, and installation of Word97/98 ...
Many people refuse to move 'forward' to bloatware that offers little or no
advance, is bug-ridden, and can't write reliable Word 6 or RTF formats.
I'm seriously considering WordPerfect 8, or abandoning the word-processor
as an art-form that has outlived its usefulness. Back in the 70s, I
designed editors, and published articles on the topic. So I could go back
to the future with some equanimity, if it wasn't for the fact that I have
consultancy clients and colleagues who blindly follow the MS meander.
Does anyone have any solutions to what seems to be an impasse?
<meta>
Once again, please post on link only constructive comments, not flames.
Yes, I'm happy to receive flames off-link, whether the object of the flame
lives in Redmond, or in Canberra!
</meta>
Roger Clarke http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/
http://www.etc.com.au/Xamax/
Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd, 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916 mailto:Roger.Clarke@anu.edu.au
Visiting Fellow, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology
The Australian National University Canberra ACT 0200 AUSTRALIA
Information Sciences Building Room 211 Tel: +61 2 6249 3666